Jeremy Noseda: Always Something Else to Learn

After completing his A-levels, Jeremy Noseda apparently turned down five university places, including one at Cambridge, opting instead for a lengthy apprenticeship with the late John Dunlop, John Gosden, Hilal Ibrahim and Saeed bin Suroor. Noseda was offered, and declined, an opportunity to start training, in his own right, for Sheikh Mohammed in Chantilly, France. He later recalled, “It was a very generous gesture, but he wanted to set me up in France. I am English through and through and this country is where I always wanted to train,”

Noseda opted, instead for independence, setting up on his own in California in late 1996. However, in August, 1997 he bought Shalfleet Stables, Newmarket from the late Paul Kelleway and started training in Britain the following year. He saddled his first winner, Nautical Warning, at the first time of asking in a lowly apprentices’ handicap at Lingfield in January, 1998. By the end of the year, Noseda had already saddled his first Group winner, Wannabe Grand, in the Shadwell Stud Cheveley Park Stakes at Newmarket.

He trained his first Royal Ascot winner, Just James, in the Coventry Stakes in 2002 and, the following season, completed a notable juvenile double with Carry On Katie in the Sky Bet Cheveley Park Stakes and Balmont in the Shadwell Stud Middle Park Stakes at the Cambridgeshire Meeting at Newmarket. He saddled his first Breeders’ Cup winner, Wilko, in the Bessemer Trust Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Lone Star Park, Texas in 2004 and, two years later saddled his first Classic winner, Araafa, in the Irish St. Leger in 2006. Later that same season, Noseda always won the St. Leger at Doncaster with Sixties Icon.

Subsequent highlights have been Soldier’s Tale in the Diamond Jubilee Stakes at Royal Ascot and Simply Perfect in the UAE Hydra Properties Falmouth Stakes at Newmarket

in 2007, Fleeting Spirit in the Darley July Cup at Newmarket in 2009, Sans Frontieres in the Irish Field St. Leger at the Curragh in 2010 and Western Aristocrat in the Jamaica Handicap at Belmont Park, New York in 2011.

However, throughout his career, Noseda has delivered the goods in numerous prestigious races including valuable handicaps such as the Royal Hunt Cup and Wokingham Stakes at Royal Ascot. Indeed, in 2010, he saddled Laddies Poker Two, a 5-year-old owned by Derrrick Smith, Michael Tabor and John Magnier, to land a gamble of biblical proportions in the Wokingham Stakes. Returning from an absence of 610 days, Laddies Poker Two was backed from 25/1 at the start of the week to 9/2 favourite and, having travelled well throughout, won by 2½ lengths, breaking the course record in the process.